Tuesday, May 3, 2016

For the Intro to Geography blog project, I decided to go
with option A (choose a meal or product) and research the meal that I most recently
eat at that time. I discovered that the Italian Cuisine, Chicken Alfredo, is
more than likely worse for your body than it is for the environment.

Though my meal was specifically Chicken Alfredo, the two
main ingredients necessary to successfully make any of the Alfredo plates is Fettuccini
Pasta and Alfredo Sauce, which can be found, purchased, and consumed by anyone
from their local grocery store.

What makes this plate an ecologically virtuous meal (a “green”
solution), is the produce that makes up the two main ingredients, as well as,
the continuous efforts from the company that produces and distributes this
pasta and sauce.

The Fettuccini pasta (first ingredient), is made from flat
sheets of pasta cut into ribbon-shaped strands (known as "fettucce")
and produced by Semolina (ground from Durum wheat grains) and purified water. What
makes this ingredient domiciliary, locally, and globally environmentally
friendly, is the fact that Durum wheat is relatively grown worldwide and
reduces the need for excessive transports of goods, which naturally lead to the
release of CO2 emissions. In addition, the Barilla company (Italian Family
Owned Food Company), carefully place their manufacturing factories near
locations that produce the largest amount of produce in order to not only save
on the cost of transportation but also help reduce the amount of CO2 being
dispersed into the atmosphere.

The second ingredient, Alfredo Sauce, is made with
high-quality ingredients like real Parmesan and Romano cheese and cream. Though
the process of gathering, transporting, and producing for this ingredient has slightly
more of an environmental impact than the pasta, it is overall a “green”
solution product in all three categories; especially in our state, Wisconsin.

Though the two ingredients that made up my meal are
environmentally friendly in nature, I was quite impressed with the recycling efforts
by the Barilla Company. This company recycles almost all of their cardboard
uses, save about twenty percent of their total water and electricity
consumption, and they seek ways that best helps their company reduce their
total pollution outflow.

I was fortunate to have a meal, two ingredients and a
company that are all relatively environmentally safe and vigilant; however not
every company will operate in this manner and not every meal will contain “green”
ingredients. Though this will pose limitations to promoting my meal as a
solution to environmental problems, the efforts of the company are ideal
mission statements that could be encouraged and practiced by other companies
with much less environmentally friendly products.